INDIANAPOLIS — A traveling exhibition of images by one of the nation’s greatest documentary photographers, Dorothea Lange, opens March 4 at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. Changing Views: The Photography of Dorothea Lange includes oversized prints of 30 of Lange’s remarkable images from the 1930s and 1940s, including her most famous photograph, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California.
Taken in 1936 in a migrant-worker camp, Lange’s stark black-and-white photograph of a woman with a forlorn expression cradling an infant — with two other children huddled behind her — is considered the iconic image of America during the Great Depression. Reproduced many times, including as a U.S. postage stamp, Migrant Mother has come to symbolize homeless families and migrants uprooted by economic crises. Visitors to Changing Views will experience up close a 36-by-26-inch print of the photograph with the mother’s unforgettable, haunting gaze.
Changing Views features many more of Lange’s images made during her time as a traveling documentary photographer for federal government agencies during the New Deal and World War II. Committed to social justice, Lange (1895-1965) used her Graflex camera to bring out the humanity of and create empathy for ordinary people struggling with poverty, unemployment, homelessness and dislocation. And, the exhibition features striking works by other 1930s documentary photographers who were peers of Lange’s, such as Walker Evans, Mike Disfarmer and Doris Ullman, among others.
Changing Views, which is open March 4 to August 6, includes impactful public programs at the Eiteljorg, such as curator-led tours and talks March 4 and July 7, a talk by local photographer and activist Wildstyle Paschall on April 13, a film photography workshop with Roberts Camera on April 15, a lecture about the experiences of interned Japanese Americans by Dr. Chrissy Lau on April 20, and more. Visit Eiteljorg.org/events for details.
Changing Views: The Photography of Dorothea Lange is included with regular Eiteljorg Museum admission. For more details, visit Eiteljorg.org/ChangingViews and Eiteljorg.org/events.
